


a brief conversation

by freecastle



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gaslighting, Gen, Past Child Abuse, Protective Nott (Critical Role)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:07:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23582839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freecastle/pseuds/freecastle
Summary: Beauregard struggles, sometimes, to know what to feel about her parents.
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett & Nott
Comments: 9
Kudos: 132





	a brief conversation

**Author's Note:**

> might update later when i've revised it, but i wanted to get this out. hope u enjoy this short and brittle thing

Beau sidles up to Nott during second watch, one night.

After a surprisingly challenging encounter with a troll, Caleb is tapped, so they’ve been forced to go back to basics: a fire, a rotating watch, and sleep snatched with hands resting on weapons and component pouches. She would call it quaint if that word would ever leave her lips under any circumstances.

Beau is still bleary-eyed as she taps over to the toppled tree trunk that Nott is sitting on, knees drawn to the crossbow she holds in front of her chest like a security blanket. Dropping next to her, Beau sends a cursory glance into the brush around their little clearing; nothing catches her eye. The air is ice-cold and brittle around them. It suits her just fine, tonight.

Nott takes a long swig from her flask, and Beau quickly rehashes the evening and all the instances of flask-swigging. She counts at least three around the fire, several during the troll-fighting business, and two on the first half of the day’s journey. Seems like enough to get her buzzed, and that’s probably a good thing.

“Hey, Nott”, she says before she can think about it more, or anything ridiculous like that. “C’n I ask you something?”

Nott yawns so deeply Beau can inspect her molars (no cavities, impressive). “Go ‘head.”

Beau breathes out heavily, fixing her gaze on her knees, where she’s balancing her staff. "I’ve seen how you and Yeza are. With Luc." _Spit it out, Lionett_. So she does, and sounds abrasive to her own ears as she roughly asks, "would you ever… ever hit him?"

Out of the corner of her eye, she watches as Nott freezes. By virtue of the green skin, she’s not quite certain if the woman’s knuckles really are tightening around the crossbow, but she wouldn’t bet against it. Beau can feel her heart beating out of her chest, because _gods_ , this is awful to ask even by her standards.

After a moment, the goblin breathes out evenly and unfurls her legs. "The only reason I’m not putting a bolt through your knee right now", she says very calmly as she turns to face Beau, "is that I would hate for you to scream and wake the others."

"I just —"

"So", Nott interrupts her, voice freezing cold, "you better look me in the fucking eye and explain yourself right. Now."

Beau forces herself to turn to face Nott — her _friend_ , gods damn it, what is she _doing_ — though she is barely able to meet the stony yellow eyes currently boring holes through her skull. Her hands go to her arms, and she presses her fingertips into her skin as hard as she can, trying to ground herself.

" _What_?", Nott barks, and Beau’s eyes fly to Nott’s by sheer reflex.

A small, detached part of her actually thinks that she’s never seen Nott so profoundly and utterly furious. As much as the goblin snarls and hisses, curses and screams at their opponents in battle, this is a new kind of anger, pure and unadulterated. Suddenly, as Beau struggles for words, she feels very cold.

"I was — I was thinking about — just —" Beau is stuttering through her teeth, and Nott’s eyes narrow. "I just — I just don’t know what’s _normal_ , okay?"

"What’s that supposed to mean?" Nott’s voice is still dangerous, though thankfully quieter.

"Listen —" Beau takes a deep breath. "You and me and Caleb. We’re the Empire crew, right? Well, Caleb and I are the Empire _kids_ , specifically, but — anyways, the way Caleb was, I don’t know, raised? Was obviously _so_ fucked up, and Trent is an actual garbage fire, so none of that is a viable comparison —"

"What. Is. Your question."

Beau huffs, her stomach coiled with tension and just a little desperation, because she doesn’t _want_ to say the question out loud, she only wants the answer, fucking hells. "Are you seriously gonna make me spell it out, man?", she asks, bitter with frustration.

Nott regards her for a long moment, eyes narrowed. And she takes her hand off the crossbolt, to Beau’s immense relief.

"Beau", she says carefully, though there’s still an edge to her voice, "are you asking me whether it’s normal for — for parents in the Empire to hit their children?"

It’s like one of the many strings holding her shoulders taut with nervous energy is cut the moment Nott says the sentence. Beau almost sags down from the tree trunk, then takes a second to recover before forcing her guarding walls back up into place. "Maybe", she says, voice only nearly cracking.

The anger in Nott’s eyes fades slowly, but thoroughly, like it was never even there. It’s replaced quickly by a sadness Beau is not sure she’s comfortable with, and before she can help it, her mouth is talking again, desperately filling the silence.

"Listen, it’s like — my family is a bunch of dipshits, right? And I know that! It’s just — I can’t really judge when _I’m_ being a dipshit — so I was thinking about — about how much of my parents being shitty was actually _me_ being shitty, and — and you’re a mom, now, so I just thought —"

"Stop", Nott says quietly.

Beau stops.

Nott looks at her for another long moment, then she reaches into her pocket to pull out her flask and holds it out to Beau. Without even thinking about it, she grabs it and drinks, only stopping after several long swallows. As she hands the flask back, once again, she can’t bring herself to look at Nott.

"You’ve seen how Yeza and I are with Luc", Nott starts slowly, "right?"

Beau nods curtly.

"Right. So… what do you think?"

She keeps staring at her knees. "I dunno. No one… no one ever thought my dad would, either. So."

"Hm." For several seconds, they both stare into the fire, then Nott draws another breath. "Let me put it different, then. You… when we went to Felderwin, you… saw me. Didn’t you?" Beau nods slowly. But all that follows is yet more silence as she scratches her ears, breathing evenly, and Beau does not dare to make a sound before the other woman does.

"The thought of someone hurting my son", Nott says slowly, "makes me feel like I am going to throw up. I cannot explain to you… how many people I would hunt down and _murder_ ", and she presses out every word through her teeth now, "to make sure that person would die a horrible, gruesome death."

"What if it’s not, like… simple hurting?", Beau asks softly. Her hands are gripping on to her forearms, nervously stroking her own skin. "What if someone was… hurting him so he could be… a better kid? In the future?"

Nott _snarls_ at that, a vicious, cruel noise that has Beau flinching back. "There is", she hisses, then regains control of herself, though her hands still form fists so tight that her claws must dig into the meat of her palm. "Beau", she says, quieter this time, "look at me." She does. Yellow-green fills her field of vision.

"There is no. Such. Thing."

Everything inside Beau goes still.

"There isn’t?", she asks, her voice shaking ever so slightly despite herself.

The blind fury fades from Nott’s eyes and makes way for that same sadness again. Beau thinks she might drown in it, deep and all-encompassing, because it reminds her so terribly of herself from years ago. "No", she says softly, shaking her head. "There isn’t."

"Oh", Beau says faintly. "Oh."

Nott sighs once more and carefully picks up Beau’s hands, lying motionless for once on top of her thighs. Her own green hands are barely big enough to properly hold one human one, but they manage.

"I kind of knew", Beau manages to croak. "But."

"Yeah", Nott murmurs, sweeping her thumb in slow circles over the back of Beau’s hands. "It’s okay."

And it is.

Somehow, it is.


End file.
